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Publication Date: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 LETTERS
LETTERS
(September 22, 2004)
Grade separations? We don't need 'em
Editor:
Where does a 600-pound gorilla sleep? Anywhere it wants to! Where does the Caltrain/Joint Powers Board build grade separations?
Anywhere they want to! Menlo Park really does not need to help them. It needs to stop them.
Two forces are driving this grade separation obsession:
* The expectations of the California High Speed Rail Authority. To them, it will be money in the bank. High Speed Rail obliges grade separations by law. The Peninsula needs a second, duplicate high speed train system like a hole in the head. Without California High Speed Rail (just say no in 2006) grade separation needs are highly questionable.
* Caltrain threatens us with a future of 110 trains daily, and with faster baby bullets. Rail separations, they say, will be a must. Sure they want to build it. But, do we need it? Does the Peninsula need it? Does anyone need it? Besides Caltrain, I mean.
Some in Menlo Park fear more traffic congestion is inevitable. So, those fearful people need to answer this question, since improving traffic flow with grade separations will certainly increase traffic volume and speed.
Do we really want even more traffic whipping through Menlo Park's city streets, as ever more trains roar over them? It's a basic law of physics. Think carefully before you answer.
If Menlo Park permits the building of High Speed Rail down the Peninsula rail corridor, supported by grade separations, you can kiss the Menlo Park you love good-bye. Can you do anything about it? You bet. Organize.
Tell our City Council how you feel about this. Listening to us is their job.
Martin Engel
Stone Pine Lane, Menlo Park
Lowering tracks would reduce train noise
Editor:
Assuming we must have grade separations in Menlo Park, the "split-level" seems to be less disruptive at a given crossing than the "deep underpass" design, but the raised tracks constitute a wall cleanly dividing the city east from west, something I find deeply disturbing.
In addition this design maximizes train noise. Why not instead of raising the tracks, lower them, thus reducing train noise. Then at crossings, the roadway would go over the tracks, which also has the advantage of imposing no height limit for trucks.
Jym Clendenin
Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park
Missing link in Town Center planning
Editor:
While the planning process for the new Portola Valley Town Center has been underway for many years, little is known about the nature of generic community needs and interests.
Getting a handle on this problem isn't easy. Almost everyone you talk to will say that the library is the most important feature of the current Town Center. It seems to be the one use that most people identify with ,yet we know very little about how people use or don't use the library and why?
The same is true about the Town Hall. Last week one resident voluntarily did a study on the Multi-use room (MUR) use in 2003. Classroom use is youth centric and formal league-type athletic activities seem to get more attention than those aimed at small groups or individuals. Should this be the basis on which we select the design and uses for our Town Center?
Why not start with the 2000 Census? That's the one bit of definitive information we have. That tells us who lives here by a number of different measures. One thing I noticed was the 2000 Census shows us that 37.6 percent of our households have residents who are over 65. Why don't we have a town committee looking into senior needs?
I also noted that there were many households (25.4 percent) without children as compared to 31.3 percent with individuals under 18. That made me wonder if anyone had ever done a study of how the Town Center was being used or not being used by adults.
The questions keep coming to my mind and I hope yours too. What are our genuine needs? How do we contrast and quantify them from things we'd like to have or would benefit us personally?
My point here is that instead of relying on existing uses, vested interests, and the volunteer efforts of current town committees, we need more systematic methods based on reliable market research. Until we get this, my fear is that the Town Center project will be muddled in controversy and mistrust.
Virginia Bacon
Golden Oak Drive, Portola Valley
Neighbors' litter stinks up school grounds
Editor:
One day, on our first day of school, we went to recess to play. We went to play on the grass and looked on the ground. One of our neighbors forgot to clean up after their dog. We told our teacher and she cleaned it up. It was very stinky!
We talked to the class about this thing that happened and we decided we could help our school and our neighbors by asking them to clean up after their dogs. We made some posters and they are hanging up on our playground.
Now we are writing to the newspaper to ask our neighbors to please watch your dogs, keep them on leashes, and don't let them go to the bathroom on our playground. If it does make a mistake, please clean it up.
The First Graders
Phillips Brooks School, Menlo Park
A different view of downloading music
Editor's Note: This letter is a response to Miles
McMullin's column in last week's Family Almanac.
Editor:
The record companies tell us that music "pirates" are "stealing" songs online, but that version of the story ignores reality and blindly parrots Hollywood spin.
The reality: when you pay $16 for a CD, the musician gets about $1, if they're lucky. Many major label artists get nothing at all.
The "Big 5" major labels pay radio stations to play their songs (and only their songs). Payola, once a scandal, is now standard practice, and the Big 5 use their control of radio play-lists to force terrible contracts on musicians.
The major labels have been scamming musicians for decades so their claim that file-sharing hurts artists rings hollow. These companies' real worry is that the internet makes them unnecessary.
There's no justification for lawsuits against families: a Voluntary Collective License (VCL) system would let internet providers offer "all-you-can-eat" downloads for a flat fee of $5/month, and labels would get paid for each song. Total revenue would exceed what the major labels currently earn, but they'll never accept it. Why? Because the new system would make it easy to be a successful musician without signing a major label contract.
Laurence Miotto
Harkins Avenue, Menlo Park
Student burdens different a few years ago
Editor:
I was highly distraught to learn of the sad plight of our local students.
Apparently, all that stands between them and slipping "over the brink into insanity during the school year" is the promise of vacation "sun, swim, and summer trips," as explained in last week's Family Almanac story titled "Sister, brother take summer trips to remember." Adding to their distress is the fact that "most students" are reportedly relegated to doing "the usual: Hawaii, San Diego, L.A., New York, maybe Europe."
I feel fortunate that the choices were so much easier and straightforward in my youth. We were blessed with much more attractive alternatives, such as picking berries, mowing lawns and, if we were really lucky, working graveyard in a local cannery.
Previously, I had not fully understood or appreciated the factors contributing to the widespread concern that life is so much more difficult for the kids of today. Now things are much more clear to me.
On the other hand, herein may lie some clues as to why the prospect of attending school seemed much less traumatic in my time (even if we were relegated to actually remaining on campus and eating school food, as opposed to spending inordinate sums of our parents' cash in local delicatessens, often accessed via incredibly expensive automobiles).
Mark Williams
White Oak Drive, Menlo Park
Ferries do not meet the water mark
Editor:
A recently published evaluation of Measure A for the City/County Association of Governments(C/CAG) discusses improving fuel efficiency by adding auxiliary lanes to our freeways. However, it does not address the proposed ferry system, which is a new type of transit for the county that will received funds from Measure A.
According to the Water Transport Authority's environmental impact report, a car crossing the bay with two passengers would be more fuel-efficient than a ferry crossing with 67 passengers. A boat during rush hour may be at full capacity in the commute direction but will be nearly empty upon its return.
In these days of excessive fuel costs, can voters of San Mateo County afford to operate a public transport system that has a limited passenger-mile travel ratio? If the study included a fuel efficiency analysis of Measure A's ferry transport system it would not reach the water mark.
Bruce Balshone
Citizens for Better Transit
Burlingame
Mayor needs to respond to commission walkout
Editor:
When an entire city commission resigns as a block to protest the actions of a City Council, one might rightfully expect that the local mayor would be engaged in some soul-searching, bridge-building -- or even recruiting.
Instead, in her letter that ran in last week's Almanac, Menlo Park Mayor Lee Duboc showed us once again that she just can't take the heat. The disappearance of civil discourse and of any mutual respect of differences in this small town over the past few years has done more damage to the community than any single issue.
This fall, I will look for candidates with poise, professionalism, and grace under pressure. Let us put into office council members who respect residents' right to disagree and who put more energy into consensus-seeking than into personal attacks.
Insults hurled at dissenters across crowded rooms, tears on the dais when faced with a difficult vote, public excoriation of letter-writers exercising their right to disagree: Menlo Park deserves better.
Catherine McMillan
San Mateo Drive, Menlo Park
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